


Will you permit it?

by Irnstark



Series: I will follow you into the dark [2]
Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Angst, Canon Era, Enjolras Is Bad At Communicating, Enjolras Is Bad At Feelings, Grantaire Angst, Grantaire is a Mess, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mutual Pining, One Shot, Unresolved Romantic Tension, drink with me scene, quotes from The Brick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-09
Updated: 2020-07-09
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:28:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25163935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Irnstark/pseuds/Irnstark
Summary: 2. Time.“You have a life ahead of you, you could do so much. I know you could, I can see it, I can feel it, you have a gift, Enj, and you’re throwing it away. People would follow you. They would believe in you. But this just isn’t the right time”.
Relationships: Enjolras/Grantaire (Les Misérables)
Series: I will follow you into the dark [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1822939
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15





	Will you permit it?

It was sunset when they started singing. At first, it had been an off-key tune started by Courfeyrac for fun, Combferre had even told him to cut it out one or two times but then Joly had joined him and after Joly everyone was singing along the tune of an old song Grantaire recognized from their meetings at the Musain. He wasn’t really in the mood for singing, though. Maybe if it had been another night. Maybe if they had been somewhere else, perhaps down the street of Paris, perhaps in front of the fire in their room in the Musain. Maybe, if his chest didn’t feel like crushing under the weight of guilt and frustration and if his mind wasn’t busy with hundreds of different thoughts at the same time. Grantaire watched as Gavroche cuddled up against Courfeyrac’s side and started humming along their song as well, learning the tune and joining in with his own verses from time to time. A bitter smile formed on his lips and Grantaire forced himself to look away, he forced himself to distract his mind with some other thoughts.  
  
_Drink with me to days gone by, sing with me the songs we knew..._  
  
There were no other thoughts. How could there be. They were singing, god, they were singing, and smiling, and acting as if there was nothing to fear, as if this was just another night at the Musain, just them and their stupid ideals and their stupid dreams of a better world. _  
  
Here’s to pretty girls who went to our heads..._  
  
Prouvaire smiled and Joly shoved him gently, grinning as well.  
  
_Here’s to witty girls who went to out beds..._  
  
They looked so carefree. So young. God, they were so _young_ , how did they end up in such a place like that? In between all that mess of wood and waving tricolors hanging from closed windows and locked doors, in that small corner of one of the many streets of Paris, a forgotten place in a forgotten city, a drop of water in an endless ocean and yet there they were; there it was their whole world, there it was their whole life and everything they had ever known. How could they think this was gonna change anything? How could they believe a whisper, a breath of wind, a little spark lost in the night was gonna mean anything? Grantaire knew better. He could see beyond those barricades they had built with so much hope and fever and what was it, that he could he see? A new day that looked just the same as the one that had just gone by. He stared down at his empty bottle of wine and sighed softly, closing his eyes. Drinking his thoughts away had become a habit of his. He hated it but not as much as he found relief in it, not as much as he needed it. He couldn’t linger too much on his thoughts, especially right now. He couldn’t linger on the way his stomach felt as if it was being sucked in from the inside, slowly and painfully, he couldn’t linger on the way his eyes would sting with tears when he held his breath and on the way his lungs seemed to refuse to cooperate that night, leaving him with the same strange and oppressive feeling of a man trapped in a tight, cramped room. No, no he couldn’t allow himself to think about it. He had been on the edge all day. Had tried to soften his senses as much as he could but apparently he was running out of alcohol and after all he knew he couldn’t avoid the moment he feared the most for much longer now. Each passing hour, each passing minute, each word of that silly song his friends were singing, each breath they’d take, each laugh and smile brought them closer to the inevitable. And god, did Grantaire feel helpless. He opened his eyes, slowly, and he noticed a new figure that hadn't been there before. He recognized him as soon as he laid eyes on his back, he would have recognized him anywhere. Enjolras was standing next to him but he wasn’t paying him any attention at all. Instead, he was looking at his friends, the slightest hint of a smile on his lips and a tired look on his face. So young, yet so old. _Already a man, he still seemed a child._ Grantaire took a deep, shaky breath and blinked away another wave of tears.

_Here’s to them and here’s to you..._

They had talked about this before. Well. _Talked_ wasn’t exactly the right word to use here. Grantaire had tried to talk to Enjolras about this, about this crazy idea that he had had, about this plan of his. Enjolras hadn’t listened. Grantaire had tried again, even drunker the second time because he didn’t know if he could stand Enjolras’ look of annoyance and disappointment while sober. He had found out that he couldn’t either way. He didn’t know what exactly made him open his mouth in that moment.

“ _Drink with me to days gone by..._ ”  
Some of his friends turned to look at him. Enjolras turned around as well and for a moment, for just a moment, Grantaire could still see the hint of a small smile on his lips. His heart reacted in a strange way to that vision and he considered stopping himself right there, now that he had the chance. Keep that smile, keep that peace. That was all he had ever wanted, after all. Yes, all that he had ever wanted. All that he had ever wanted and he was never going to get. All that he had ever wanted and it was slipping away from him as quickly as water slips through one’s fingers and there was nothing he could do to keep it there. Nothing he could do to keep that smile, nothing he could do to keep that moment and live forever in it.  
  
“ _Can it be you fear to die?_ ”

He stood up. Enjolras wasn’t smiling anymore. He didn’t know about his friends, he couldn’t see them.  
  
“Grantaire...” Enjolras murmured, quietly, warning. Grantaire felt his chest rise and fall quickly from his heavy breathing and took a step forward, pointing to Enjolras with his empty bottle of wine.

“ _Will the world remember you when you fall—_ ”  
  
“Grantaire that’s _enough!_ ”  
  
“ _Can it be your death means nothing at all?_ ”

  
His voice had grown loud. His eyes were filled with tears again. Enjolras was staring at him with fire in his eyes. Grantaire didn’t care. He scoffed, smiling bitterly and took another step forward so that he was now face to face with the other man. He pressed the empty bottle to his chest and when he spoke it wasn’t louder than a whisper.

“ _Is your life just one more lie?”_

They stayed like that for a couple of seconds. Still, quiet, waiting. Then, Grantaire dropped his gaze to the floor and took a step back, and then another, until he was walking away, as far from his friends, as far from Enjolras as possible. He walked inside the Musain. He walked upstairs.  
  
_Breathe_. He wrapped an arm around his stomach and used the other to keep himself stable against the closest wall. Had he gone too far? Had he crossed the line? His friends were all there and he had told them their sacrifice was going to be worthless. His friends. Enjolras. _Breathe._ He closed his eyes and fought back the tears. And God, the look on Enjolras’ face. The thought alone was enough to make his stomach drop. _Breathe, goddamn it._ He took a small, shaky breath followed by another, and then another, and before he knew he was gasping for air.

“Grantaire?”  
  
Grantaire tried to turn around but his body refused to move. He dug his fingers in the cold and rough wall and grasped the fabric of his waistcoat harder. What was Enjolras doing there?  
  
“R?”  
  
Grantaire couldn’t take this. No, no he needed to leave. He pushed himself away from the wall but as soon as he let his hand slip away from it he lost balance and fell down on the floor.  
  
“Grantaire!”  
  
Enjolras took a few steps towards him but Grantaire crawled away until his back was pressed against the wall.  
  
“Grantaire what are you—”  
  
“No!” It was all he could manage to say. The grip on his stomach was impossibly tight but he didn’t register the pain, he didn’t register the blood that had started to slip down his fingers for how hard he had pressed them against the small stones of the wall. He didn’t register any of it. He, however, registered the look on Enjolras’ face, confused, taken aback— _hurt_ , if he hadn’t known better.  
  
“It’s fine, R—”  
  
“No! No, it’s not, it’s not _fine!_ ” Grantaire was screaming. He was screaming and he couldn’t stop, he didn’t want to scream, not to Enjolras, he couldn’t— he couldn’t. He waited for him to scream back. He waited for him to shove him, to tell him how fucking _pathetic_ he looked, he waited for him to tell him to leave. But Enjolras didn’t move. He was quiet. Quiet, for the first time. He was listening, he was waiting, and that made Grantaire’s chest fill with a new kind of rage, a new kind of desperation that couldn’t be held back anymore.  
  
“This is insane! This—you, you are insane! Everyone’s gonna die, you’re gonna die and—and I—” his voice cracked. This was not the way he wanted this whole thing to go. He wasn’t making sense, not even to his own ears, _why_ , why on _earth_ couldn’t he just make sense for once? Enjolras was listening, he was finally listening and there he was, throwing away the only chance he might have had at this, his only chance to save his friends. What did he expect anyway? Eloquence had never been his strong point. The thing is, he didn’t have any strong points. Enjolras was right, he had always been right, and he had been a fool to think otherwise. _Grantaire, you’re incapable of believing, of thinking, of willing, of living, and of dying._ Enjolras’ words echoed in his mind as loud as a thunder. He pressed his legs as close to his chest as possible and once again fought back the urge to burst out in tears right away.

Enjolras was standing there, unsure about what to do. He hesitated, considering his next moves carefully. He took a small step forward and when he didn’t get any reaction from Grantaire he took another one, and so on until he was kneeling down next to him. He raised a shaky hand, going for Grantaire’s shoulder but Grantaire instinctively pulled away and Enjolras was quick to let it fall back to his lap.

They stayed like that for a while. Grantaire’s breathing started to slow down after a couple of minutes. He knew how to handle this, it had happened before, he knew what to do. He wasn’t used to having someone else next to him, though, and out of all people he had never imagined that Enjolras would witness him in such conditions, and that he’d decide to stay anyway.

“I’m sorry” Grantaire murmured at one point. Enjolras looked at him. “I’m sorry for everything. I mean, I figured, since we’re all gonna die anyway I should— I should set things straight. At least with you. I want to make this right, I want you to— you... I wish you had a different opinion of me, other than just someone who’s incapable of...” he scoffed, taking a small breath “ _Existing._ I’m sorry, Enjolras. I never meant any of it. I never meant to...” his voice broke. He made a small wounded noise but he quickly tried to cover it with a cough. Enjolras looked down, playing with his own hands in his lap.

“You’re not gonna die”  
  
Grantaire looked at him. “What do you mean?”  
  
“You’re not. I won’t allow it”  
  
Grantaire scoffed again, shaking his head. “Why? What do you care anyway?”

“You shouldn’t be here—”  
  
“I think we’ve established your annoyance with my presence enough times—”  
  
“No, I mean” Enjolras took a deep breath and Grantaire winced for how done Enjolras looked. _Just shut the hell up_ , he told himself.  
  
“I mean that this is no place for you. Grantaire, this... this is all I believe in. This is what we have been planning for so long, what all of us are willing to die for. A better world, a better future, a change. We believe in all of this and we know that...” he paused. “We know what our destiny will be. But you...you still have so much to do.You still have to find yourself, find something to believe in, something that will make your heart fill with joy and hope, something that you’re willing to die for. You still have so much to do and accomplish, R, and I won’t— I won’t let you throw away your life for this.”  
  
Grantaire stared at him. It took him a while to process everything Enjolras had said. He opened his mouth to speak a couple of times but no sound came out of it. He felt as if someone had just showered him with a bucked of icy water. He felt like too many things were happening all together, and if he didn’t hurry they would slip away from him forever.  
  
“You don’t mean it” was all his brilliant mind came up with. Enjolras sighed again.  
  
“How could you know...”  
  
“Well then, if you don’t want me to die, even though I find it hard to believe—”  
  
“R—”  
  
“Then I don’t want you to die, either. You’re young, Enj, you are—” _Beautiful_. _He’s fucking beautiful and someone as beautiful as him doesn’t deserve to die._ “Why can’t you just understand? This won’t change anything, this is a useless sacrifice you’re making, the people won’t follow, Enj, I know it, you know it, it’s too soon... please listen to me. Your blood on those barricades won’t change a thing. Remember... remember when we talked about Tacitus, time ago?”  
  
Enjolras smiled a bit at the memory and Grantaire didn’t miss the way his eyes had reddened, the way his hands were shaking just slightly in his lap.  
  
“He would have told you the same thing, I believe” Grantaire tried to smile as well, but it hurt, the thought alone hurt like hell “You have a life ahead of you, you could do so much. I know you could, I can see it, I can _feel_ it, you have a gift, Enj, and you’re throwing it away. People would follow you. They would believe in you. But this just isn’t the right time”.  
  
Again, Enjolras was quiet for a while. There was so much more Grantaire wanted to say but he dared not speak. It was getting dark outside, he was barely able to make out Enjolras’ face in the darkness of the room. His friends had started to sing again and he felt a wave of relief to the thought that he hadn’t completely ruined the mood, after all.

“I hope you’ll forgive me, one day” Enjolras said quietly and Grantaire almost missed it. Almost. He felt his stomach drop at what these words implied. He shook his head, smiling bitterly.  
  
“I’d forgive you anything. You know it.”  
  
“I know” Enjolras smiled too. Grantaire let his head rest against the wall. In that moment, Enjolras had decided both of their fates and Grantaire knew it. It had always been him, after all.

“I hope you will forgive me as well.”  
  
Enjolras stared at him in confusion.  
  
“Grantaire, no, I can’t let you—”  
  
“You said” Grantaire interrupted him. “Until I find something I believe in. Something that fills my heart with joy and hope. Something I’d die for.”

Grantaire looked at him. And in that moment Enjolras knew. One tear slipped down his rosy skin but Enjolras was quick to brush it away with a tired and incredulous smile. He reached out for Grantaire’s hand, slowly, and he looked up at him in the darkness.  
  
“Will you permit it?” he asked.

Grantaire smiled as well and let Enjolras take his hand in his, and he held it tight, closing his eyes, trying to imprint that moment in his mind for forever. Soon, he was falling asleep.


End file.
